Representation of fish communities by scale sub-fossils in shallow lakes: implications for inferring percid–cyprinid shifts

The palaeoecological potential of fish scales was assessed by comparing contemporary population data with scale remains obtained from littoral (n = 10) and open water (n = 10) surface sediment samples in two English shallow lakes, Selbrigg Pond and Cockshoot Broad. Scales and/or scale fragments were present, in low numbers (<20 per 100 cm³ wet sediment) in 34 of 40 sediment samples. In accordance with fish population data, higher densities of scale remains were found in Selbrigg compared to Cockshoot, and in littoral compared to open water samples. Taxonomic difficulties, exacerbated by scale fragmentation, made it impossible to assign the majority of remains to individual species. Most remains could, however, be placed into one of two groups: (i) percids – represented by both scales and scale fragments; and (ii) cyprinids – largely represented by scale fragments. To allow comparison of fish population and sedimentary scale data, both were converted to percentages of the aggregate percid–cyprinid total. Whole scales recovered were almost exclusively percid (45 of 48), thus bore little resemblance to the contemporary fish data. Nevertheless, percentages of scale fragments (Selbrigg: 34 and 66%; Cockshoot: 13 and 87% percid and cyprinid, respectively) and of whole scales and fragments combined (Selbrigg: 54 and 46%; Cockshoot: 46 and 54% percid and cyprinid, respectively) reflected the presence of the numerically dominant fish groups and the broad inter-site differences in their relative abundance (Selbrigg: 36 and 64%; Cockshoot: 10 and 90% percid and cyprinid, respectively). A running mean of scales per sediment volume indicated that some 400 cm³ of sediment was required to accurately characterise the remains present. This study suggests that, with the appropriate methodological considerations (e.g., collection of large sediment samples), fish scale remains may be used to determine the past presence–absence and relative abundance of percid and cyprinid species. As such, this technique may be a valuable supplementary tool for establishing longer-term changes in the fish communities of shallow lakes.     

围隔生态系内富营养引起赤潮的初步研究

1990年5月12日—7月底,在厦门国家海洋局第三海洋研究所的陆基水池中,进行了一次对厦门西海域水体富营养而引发赤潮的围隔实验。实验结果表明,在厦门西海域已经处于中营养水平的水质条件下,只要光照充足,水体相对稳定,如果再连续不断地供给充足的营养盐,就可能引起浮游植物的水华或赤潮;可溶性活性磷的含量不仅仅影响厦门西海域正常年份的浮游植物春季水华,对赤潮的兴衰也起控制作用。     

围隔体内赤潮对扰动的反应

于１９９２年９－１２月，使用中尺度围隔装置（１．７ｍ＾３）研究扰动的水体对赤潮浮游植物种类演替的影响。实验结果表明，对富营养化的围隔水体进行扰动可以改变水体中赤潮生物的演替次序，即甲藻和鞭行藻往往出现在硅藻赤潮之后，本文从另一方面证明，富营养下的相对稳定水体有助于鞭毛藻类赤潮的形成。